Doris Lessing can always make me care about her subject and in this small volume she reveals her own intense feelings for the cats that have touched her life. I already think cats are amazing creatures so I sometimes found it hard to deal with certain of the events she describes. She was surrounded by semi-feral cats while growing up in Africa and it's wrenching to read about killing off the ones who became problematic--a painful task often delegated to her mother. As an adult however, she makes other decisions I find hard to tolerate, such as letting cats continue to have kittens (instead of neutering them) and then killing the kittens. Admittedly it was hard for her, too. She admires them, she often expends extraordinary resources to save and heal them, she admires their unique personalities. And it is her waxing eloquent about the individual personalities that drew me and kept me reading. The tale of one particular animal "Rufus the Survivor" is the most poignant; though he may not be the one she loved the most, it is in his story that she creates the most heartfelt connection.
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